My Role: Freelance Publicity Designer (Illustration and graphic design)
Client: MIT Musical Theatre Guild

Comments: I conceptualized, illustrated and designed this shirt (on the left) promoting MIT Musical Theatre Guild's musical production "Once Upon a Mattress" based on the classic fairytale "Princess and the Pea" where a princess wins the hand of a prince by proving herself as a "real princess" sensitive enough to feel a tiny pea buried in layers of mattresses. The shirt design has somewhat of a Japanese abstract style where its ambiguity permits multiple relevant interpretations. Aside from its obvious allusions to the play's mattress and pea motiffs, this illustration also connotes Van Gogh's "Starry Night" (story takes place mostly at night). The blue amorphous shape also alludes to the water references in the story. I used golds and purples to suggest the colors of royalty and '70ish-looking iconic patterns on the mattresses to reinforce our Director's vision of this play as being representative of a '70s-like feminist approach toward a '50s goal of winning a man for a husband. I designed this form-fitting shirt tohave a punky, alternative, artsy flair that would be appealing to a college-age youth who were the target audience of the shirt sales.

IIn this poster design (on the left), you may note that the Princess Winifred lying on mattresses forms the positive space and the profiles of the Queen and her son, the Prince are defined in the negative space formed around the mattressses. This duality playfully depicts the competitive nature of this contest between the Queen and Winifred to win the Prince.

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